Summary: An admission made by Edward to Carlisle during Eclipse on the nature of the burgeoning love triangle issues.
2006;
if I am hardened, no fear of further abandonment
"None of you can help."
There's a removed finality to his tone. As though even if this is the first words spoken on it, it's the conclusion to a discussion, or the response to the apology to the conclusion of a discussion. It doesn't matter if there are a half-million other things he's said since they left the house hours ago, they were all the lead up to this place.
Even having feasted, only his windblown hair is not meticulous. He could be prepared to give an oration, or take a class, to have a photo shoot. His face was a canvas of blankness, with tension at only the edges of his eyes.
"Alice loved Jasper from the moment she'd awoken. Emmett belonged to 'his angel' from the first delirious glance. Even you-"
Perhaps, the discernible pause here is not even so discernable when it has taken to so long to even pull this much out. That is the problem with words isn't it? They have be expelled. Yet still some are so old they defy formation as much as the newest ones. "Esme loved you from her childhood."
Edward shook his head, looking up to the sky when he cannot look to his oldest companion. Because there is no one else he could say it to, and no one else in whom he would feel it terrifies him as much to admit it before.
"Isabella loves him."